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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Lorenzo Tondo in Chernihiv

‘I couldn’t do it’: the Chernihiv coroner who faced the body of a friend

Yurii Fenenko, 44, photographed inside his office in Chernihiv.
Yurii Fenenko, 44, photographed inside his office in Chernihiv. Photograph: Alessio Mamo/The Guardian

Over weeks of conflict, Yurii Fenenko, a coroner in the besieged Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, had become familiar with the way war mangles bodies, charting the damage caused by shrapnel, cluster bombs and bullets.

The 44-year-old dreaded the day he knew would surely come, when the body of someone he was close to was brought in. But he was not prepared for it to be someone he knew so well.

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